1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a guiding and protection device, especially to a guiding and protecting device capable of guiding and protecting a cable or conduit.
2. Description of Related Art
A guiding and protecting device is commonly used in an automation moveable component, e.g. a mechanical arm of a machine, thereby preventing the flexible cable or conduit from tangling with each other.
In a conventional guiding and protecting device, the front and the rear of two lateral walls of a frame having an opened top are respectively and oppositely installed with a pair of pivot shafts and a pair of shaft holes; when being assembled, the pair of pivot shafts installed at the front of a guiding and protecting device are inserted into the pair of shaft holes formed at the rear of an adjacent guiding and protecting device, thereby forming a bendable guide chain; meanwhile a limitation mechanism is provided at the connection location defined by the pivot shafts and the shaft holes of the two guiding and protecting devices for limiting the bending angle of the two guiding and protecting devices; and the opened top of the two lateral walls of the frame is transversally installed with a restrain plate for preventing the cable or conduit accommodated in an accommodation slot of the frame from falling out, thereby achieving the objectives of guiding and protecting the cable or conduit.
One major disadvantage of the guiding and protecting device is that the guiding and protecting device is formed through plastic injection molding, such formation means would cause the two lateral walls to slightly and inwardly retract after the plastic material of which the two lateral walls are made being cooled, thereby affecting the buckling and positioning of the restrain plate. When the lateral walls of the guiding and protecting device formed as an elongated guide chain are in contact with the moveable component, the lateral walls may be deformed due to an external force, and the buckle mechanism of the restrain plate and the lateral walls is loosened so the restrain plate is released, therefore the cable or conduit accommodated in the accommodation slot formed between the two lateral walls of the frame is fallen out. As such, the skilled people in the art attempt to add glass fibers in the plastic material with a hope of reinforcing the whole strength of the guiding and protecting device, thereby decreasing the occurrence of the inward-retracted deformation after injection molding and the insufficient structural strength; however, the solution would increase the hardness of the restrain plate which would generate the disadvantages of easily to be broken or loosened and not being reusable, so the cable or conduit has to be inserted into the accommodation slot of the frame under a circumstance of the restrain plate being in a transversal connection state; however, the insertion process of the cable or conduit is not easy to be processed because any two adjacent guiding and protecting devices of the elongated guide chain are not remained in a vertical state, therefore the disadvantage shall be improved.